It's not what you gather, but what you scatter, that tells what kind of a life you have lived.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

A new month...

November heralds the beginning of the end. We all start to look at our lives, our families and all the things we're grateful for. Its a time for reflection on the past year, on the good and the bad, and even more on the in-between. My life has taken a few unexpected turns since this time last year, and I've decided that I need to take a lot closer look at how it has affected me and how I've handled it. Or maybe NOT handled it. I think I may have stuffed some things in my mental closet so I wouldn't have to face the end results. I know I have been having to force myself to go to church every Sunday, and that doesn't happen to me very often. I love my church and my religion. I love my Savior and I'm very grateful for everything he did for me, so that I might have the opportunity to make my own choices, good or bad. My week is just not the same when I don't go to church, but lately I've had a hard time going. I'm going to have to take a good, long look inside me and find out what the problem is.

My husband's heart attack opened my eyes to something else.... my horrible lifestyle. Maybe not horrible, but not great, that's for sure. I eat too much fried food, too many chips and too many snacks. I snack way too late at night. I stay up too late and I don't get enough hours of sleep. I don't get even a smidgen of the exercise I need, and I spend too much time on the computer (Imagine that!). There is a lot more I could add to the list, but you get the idea.

So, what am I going to do about these things? And how am I going to express my thanks to my Heavenly Father for all the good things in my life? (And there are plenty of them!) I am going to keep a gratitude journal for the month of November. I realize I'm a few days behind, but I'll catch up. I am going to recognize and list and discuss and doodle and glue and rearrange, whatever my little heart needs to do to be able to express my thanks for my life and all the blessings I receive everyday. I am going to focus more on the positive and less on the negative. I will keep you posted (no pun intended) on my progress, and if this works for me, I may do it for the whole year, starting in January. We could make this a regular thing. How does Talk to Me Tuesday sound? I'm going to think about this and maybe we'll start a new feature. But for now....

Spider S'mores
Its time to move on to other things. I know Halloween is over, but I have just one more idea to show you. I found these on the Rhodes Bake-N-Serve weekly recipe email. I thought they were so cute that I just had to make them. They were super easy and my family loved them. Just one little secret....don't use those new HUGE campfire-roasting-size marshmallows. They take so long to melt, that my mixture turned to caramel! So here's the recipe, and if you want more really good recipes and fun things to make, go to rhodesbread.com and check it out. And sign up for the weekly email, while you're at it. You'll love the ideas and recipes.
Spider S'mores
Ingredients
6 Rhodes Warm-N-Serv™ Soft Dinner Rolls
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
marshmallows
1/2 cup coarsely crushed graham crackers
chocolate frosting
chocolate sprinkles
M &M’s
licorice laces cut into 4-inch lengths

Instructions
Bake rolls following instructions on package. Place on rack to cool. When cool, slice off tops and hollow out to make a small bowl. Place butter in a saucepan and melt. Add 40 marshmallows and continue cooking on low until completely melted*. Add graham crackers and combine well. Quickly fill each hollowed out roll with the marshmallow filling while it is warm (over fill just a little). Replace the roll tops. Frost each one with chocolate frosting and cover with chocolate sprinkles. To make the eyes, cut slices off of a marshmallow, using a hot, wet, sharp knife. Add M&M’s to each eye and one for a nose. Make holes with a wooden skewer where legs attach and poke in the licorice pieces.

*Can be melted in the microwave using a large microwave safe bowl. Use 20 second intervals until completely melted and then add your graham cracker crumbs.

We had very colorful spiders. I couldn't find black string licorice, so our
 spiders had red legs. And I ran out of chocolate sprinkles and had to use what
 I had....multicolor!
That's it for today. I have rambled enough. Hope you all had a good Halloween. Here are a few photos of our pumpkin carving adventure. They turned out pretty good.

Kristen looks like she's having fun, doesn't she?

Cameron and Halena dig out the pumpkin guts.

Eeeeeeeeeew! We saved some to plant next year.

Yes, this is me with my arm in the pumpkin.

My son and husband waited until everyone else was done.

The first four done. Left to right: Kristen's evil face, my Frankie, Hally's witch and Cameron's ghostie-ghoulie.

Chuck's really evil face.

Andy has always loved Scooby Doo.

We couldn't get them all in one photo. but this was how they looked on
 Halloween, all lined up on the fence posts, waiting for the trick-or-treaters.
Have a good day and remember....to succeed, we must first believe that we can.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Hi! I would love to hear from you. Please come back and comment often. Thanks!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...